Chapter 13 #3
“The Crau Setra are famous witch assassins,” he said.
“A sisterhood of killers. They train their acolytes to seduce. The current Devout Mother is called Marrigan. She sent the witch with poisoned blood you saw last night. And twenty-five years ago, she sent Lilawen to the Drakhold with orders to charm Rasimir and then kill him.”
Despite the garden’s warmth, a chill crept through me. Could it be true? Vander had served Rasimir for two centuries. I looked at him. “Did you meet her? My mother?”
“Yes.” He withdrew his hand, and he and Lorcan exchanged a look. “We both did.”
A knot of nerves, hope, and curiosity formed in my throat. “What was she like? She always spoke of my father as someone to fear.” Heat touched my cheeks. “Did she…charm him?”
Vander nodded, sunlight gilding his bright hair. “I believe she loved him. And I believe he felt the same. They were happy for a time.” He hesitated. “I thought maybe…”
“What?” I prompted, every part of me straining for more. For a happy ending, even though I knew it wouldn’t come.
Lorcan sighed, but the sound seemed more resigned than impatient. “If anyone could have saved Rasimir from himself, it was Lilawen. He was different with her. Softer. For a time, he stopped killing. And then Lilawen warded the Drakhold and fled.”
“She created a magical fence,” Vander said.
“Lilawen had many gifts, but warding was one of her strongest. When she wanted to keep someone out—or in—no one could stop her. One night, she locked down the entire fortress. Her ward held for two weeks. When it finally fell, she was safe in Ghedda. But Rasimir already knew why she left.”
“He’d tortured the servants,” Lorcan said quietly. “Two confessed that Lilawen had missed her monthly bleeds. She was pregnant.”
With me. It was too much. If Lorcan and Vander told the truth, my entire life was a lie. Still, things didn’t quite add up.
“My mother has no magic,” I insisted. “I lived alone with her in a tiny cottage for twenty-four years. She couldn’t have hidden something like that from me.”
The men exchanged a look. “We’ve wondered about that,” Lorcan said. “It should have been impossible for Lilawen to hide. Witches can sense other witches. The most powerful among them can see magic, especially when they hear the vor scapa .”
The words jangled loose a memory. “You said that in the dungeon. Vor —” My throat closed, a ring of fire circling my neck. Coughing, I pressed my hand to my throat.
“ Vor scapa ,” Lorcan said. “It’s the language of spellcasting, and it’s the heart of witchcraft.
Each word— vor —has to be earned, although every witch is born with a root word that’s almost always their strongest power.
Witches earn other vor s by dueling for them.
They can’t speak a vor until they possess the gift behind it.
The word simply won’t come. Powerful witches can also cast with their hands. ”
I looked between him and Vander. “You’ve both used this language. Neither of you are witches.” I frowned. “Unless you’re about to drop another life-changing revelation on me.” Truly, I wasn’t certain I could handle it.
“We’re not witches,” Vander said with a dip of his head.
“But vampires can drain magic from anyone. The powers we steal don’t last forever, but once taken, we can still speak the vor s behind them.
They’re just empty after the power fades.
Think of it like a candle burned to the wick.
You can still light it, but the wax is gone. There’s nothing to sustain the flame.”
My mind flashed to Lorcan draining Alon…and the werewolf. He’d drained the woman in the basement. He’d sampled the woman in the dining room before declaring her blood poisoned. Vander watched me with steady silver eyes.
“You’ve used those words with magic behind them,” I said, hearing the accusation in my voice. How many times had Vander killed? How many witches had he drained?
“Elves and witches share a distant common ancestor,” he said.
“I grew up steeped in Veradorn’s magic. More than a little of it rubbed off on me.
The elves don’t need the vor scapa to exercise their gifts.
” His self-deprecating smile showed his fangs.
“Changelings don’t have that luxury. I need language to work magic, and even then, my vocabulary is limited.
But I don’t have to drink to use what I possess. ”
When I looked at Lorcan, he rested his hands on his sword pommel. “I have more words than Vander. As he said, once you’ve earned a vor , it’s yours forever. But the words are useless unless you possess the magic to fuel them.”
“And you get it by killing,” I said.
His expression remained unchanged, nothing in his face indicating he cared the slightest about taking lives. “Typically, I have to speak the vor scapa to cast. On occasion, I can cast by hand if I’ve drained an especially powerful witch.”
Wariness spread through me. He wasn’t like Vander. Lorcan stole magic through blood—and death. I had no idea how old he was, or how long he’d served Rasimir. But I’d been ignorant long enough.
“You took Alon’s power,” I said. “And just now, you took the werewolf’s. How many more killings will it take before you go mad?”
“I don’t know,” he said evenly, “but I’m running out of time.”
Vander swung toward him with an angry sound. “That’s not—”
“It’s true, and you know it,” Lorcan said. He held my gaze even as Vander bristled beside me. “Vander’s changeling blood makes him unique among vampires. The elves are true immortals. Death holds no power over them. Vander picked up a bit of that magic.”
“Not enough,” Vander bit out. “Not with you drinking every creature in Nocta into the grave.”
“The captain has a fondness for exaggeration,” Lorcan told me.
“I’ve worked hard to earn a place at Rasimir’s side.
Every time he sees me steal a gift, his trust in me deepens.
As a changeling, Vander can consume dead blood without risking madness.
He siphons it from me when he can, but he can’t always get to me in time.
Even then, we have to be careful. We hide behind a ward or a spell that keeps others away. ”
My gaze went to the patch of grass where Vander had bitten him. “That’s why you brought us here?” I asked Vander. “So you could siphon the werewolf’s dead blood?”
He nodded. “And to speak freely. That’s not possible in Nocta.”
“All of Nocta serves the king,” I murmured, the hair on my body lifting.
“Not all,” Vander said. “But even the trustworthy have turned under your father’s influence. Fear is a powerful motivator. The prospect of death can make people do terrible things. Friends become spies. In Nocta, everyone whispers. Even the trees.”
The chill in my bones deepened. I shook my head. “Rasimir isn’t my father. He might have fathered me, but we’re not the same.”
Vander leaned toward me with urgency in his eyes. “That’s a dangerous way to think, Corinthe. Your blood is the only thing keeping you alive at the moment. You don’t understand the danger—”
“Then make her understand,” Lorcan said. He loomed over me, his expression every bit as glacial as the first time we met. “Until you proved yourself with the merman, Rasimir was prepared to kill you without a moment’s hesitation. You don’t have your root word—”
“Yet,” Vander said.
“—but you’re not a full-blooded witch,” Lorcan continued, ignoring him. “No one knows what you’re capable of. It’s possible that being a halfling means you’ll never speak the vor scapa .”
My heart sped up. He was right. Every time I’d attempted to repeat one of the foreign-sounding words, I’d choked, my throat sealing itself. Only half aware of what I was doing, I put a hand to my neck. “What if I never speak it?”
“Rasimir is willing to wait, for now,” Lorcan said.
“You’ve shown glimmers of the power he covets, and he wants you trained.
Dhampirs are rare enough to be unheard of.
The last one lived a thousand years ago.
And never in recorded history has a vampire sired a halfling with a witch. Not once, Princess, until you.”
My heart hammered in my chest. “What does that mean?” I whispered. “Will he drain me?”
“Not like you’re thinking.” Lorcan crouched, putting his gaze level with mine.
“Legend says dhampirs could retain the powers they stole. Once they took an immortal’s magic, they kept it forever.
But you’re different. Toward the end of his relationship with your mother, Rasimir began to wonder if a child of their union would be even more powerful than the dhampirs of old.
He believed you might be capable of transferring the gifts you stole.
And once given, they would never fade. The powers he steals last a long time, but they don’t last forever.
The witches have gone into hiding because he hunts them.
Their cities languish. Their numbers dwindle.
Your father is running out of gifts to steal.
But if you could steal for him and pass along the powers you take, he could rule forever, all of his magical gifts intact.
” Lorcan grasped my knee, his eyes intense.
“The fact that Lilawen ran from him makes me believe she thought the same.”
Blood rushed in my ears. A wise woman builds her house away from the cliff’s edge. But I wasn’t on the edge. I was toppling over it—with nothing at the bottom to catch me.
“Rasimir is wrong about me,” I said through numb lips. “I can’t hang on to power. The merman’s magic slipped away almost as soon as I stole it.”
“You can’t hang on to power yet ,” Vander said. “You’re still learning. And you don’t want to kill. Intention is a big part of magic. But you stole the merman’s gifts for a time. You’ll get better. And with some practice, your own gifts will grow stronger.”
He sounded so confident. I shook my head, the merman’s waxy, bloodless features flashing in my memory. “I don’t have any other gifts,” I said.